Mystery plant identified! (?)

Some, but not many, weeks ago we wrote about a plant that we couldn't identify that has popped up on many locations on our property, often mixed in with buckthorn or poison ivy. Since that time we've pulled more of the unidentified plant, along with more buckthorn, and continued to look through our field guides and other resources on the flora of Minnesota. We now believe we have established the identity of the unknown plant. We finally found strong evidence paging through, literally page by page, almost all of the 700+ pages of Welby Smith's Trees and Shrubs of Minnesota. On page 680, we found prickly ash (Zanthoxylum americanum) and a telling description that included "These roots can become quite invasive and will sprout suckers (new shoots) unless inhibited by competition." That's consistent with what we've noticed as we pulled the stems and suckers.

prickly ash (Zanthoxylum americanum)

Photo by J. Harrington

So, this year we're pulling buckthorn; pulling prickly ash; and spraying poison ivy. The buckthorn is nonnative. Prickly ash and poison ivy are both native, although the latter is listed as a noxious weed and the former is reported to offer limited medicinal properties, we believe we can do nicely with none of the above. We do continue to have major reservations about how many of the "invasive" plants in Minnesota have been classified. For the most part, the perspective described in Tao Orion's Beyond the War on Invasive Species, A Permaculture Approach to Ecosystem Restoration is more in line with our thinking and approach. Sometimes all we can do is treat symptoms, but then we should expect recurrences of the invasions. Being clearer about the priority to be assigned to responses to noxious weeds, whether invasive or not, might also be helpful.

We continue to ponder the difference between Mother Nature's approach of profligacy, spreading countless seeds wantonly, extending suckers radially, feeding fruits to creatures, thus extending the range of seed distribution, etc., compared to our more feeble planting of three or four of somethings and thus often accomplishing little but offering appetizers to the deer, rabbits and other creatures that have no respect for our efforts to improve the landscape's aesthetic qualities. Although, since we've been startled over the past few years to learn that trees communicate with each other, we wouldn't be surprised to learn some day that wild creatures actually have an aesthetic sense, but that it differs radically from ours. After all, many of us humans have wildly differing tastes in what we find pleasing to observe and/or eat. Life, and the earth, are consistently more complicated than we seem to be prepared for. Will we ever learn to take this into account and practice a much more holistic pattern of thinking?

Moonflowers

By Karma Larsen

Milly Sorensen, January 16, 1922 - February 19, 2004

It was the moonflowers that surprised us. 

Early summer we noticed the soft gray foliage. 

She asked for seedpods every year but I never saw them in her garden. 

Never knew what she did with them. 

Exotic and tropical, not like her other flowers. 

I expected her to throw them in the pasture maybe, 

a gift to the coyotes. Huge, platterlike white flowers 

shining in the night to soften their plaintive howling. 

A sound I love; a reminder, even on the darkest night, 

that manicured lawns don't surround me. 

Midsummer they shot up, filled the small place by the back door, 

sprawled over sidewalks, refused to be ignored. 

Gaudy and awkward by day, 

by night they were huge, soft, luminous. 

Only this year, this year of her death 

did they break free of their huge, prickly husks 

and brighten the darkness she left.

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